Underperforming Pontins holiday parks, budget cruise ships and student halls could be used to house asylum seekers as part of a radical 10-point plan to end 'Hotel Britain'.
The Home Office has a growing backlog of approximately 90,000 applications to work through while officials begin the process to empty the overcrowded RAF Manston holding facility.
Last week the Mirror exclusively revealed the extent of the squalid conditions inside the Kent migrant centre, with detainees sleeping on wooden floors and being held for weeks instead of the expected 24 hours.
Among the proposed solutions to the migrant crisis are popular holiday camps such as Pontin’s, Park Holidays, Warner Holidays and Butlin’s, which may be used to house people on the south coast and in Essex.
Disused student accommodation and cruise ships have also been floated as part of a 10-point plan to address the crisis, the Telegraph reports.
A senior source at the Home Office told the Express “nothing was off the table”.
"The scale of the problem is huge - as things stand, the number of migrants and asylum seekers has outstripped our capacity, and the reality is that we have just weeks to solve this current backlog crisis,“ they said.
“We need to examine other options, and the use of off-season holiday camps is an attractive idea. They are enclosed, meaning that we can provide medical and educational services whilst ensuring asylum seekers remain contained, and they would buy us breathing space, while potentially offering another stream of revenue to facilities which are not used over the winter months.”
However the "attractive idea" may have already hit a snag, with multiple holiday camp firms pointing out they no longer have "off seasons".
Writing for The Telegraph, immigration minister Robert Jenrick added that the current use of 'unsuitable' hotels as a means of accommodation could even be fuelling 'asylum shopping' economic migrants, who see Britain as a 'destination of choice'.
“‘Hotel Britain’ must end, and be replaced with simple, functional accommodation that does not create an additional pull factor,” he wrote.
It's understood the minister demanded to meet with bosses of private accommodation contractors this week and read them the riot act over the commissioning of 'unacceptable' hotels as accommodation, some of which include stately homes that charge up to £200 per night.
A cross-government party is to be established to oversee the effective running of accommodation and to speed up the transfer of migrants out of it.
It is believed the Home Office currently funds around 200 hotels, which are being block booked without any prior notice required in tourist towns.
These are thought to house as many as 37,000 migrants, which has led to eight councils considering or having taken legal action against such use.
In October the Home Office was temporarily banned from housing asylum seekers in a village hotel after a legal bid from Yorkshire Council.
The hotel crackdown is one of ten measures aimed at tackling the migrant crisis, which has seen a record 40,000 cross the channel this year - 12,000 of whom travelled from Albania.
Ministers are now planning a fast track deportation scheme for Albanians, as Britain now has a removals agreement with the nation and it can be treated as a "safe" country.
Mr Jenrick said: "Those coming from safe countries such as Albania – whose citizens account for 30 per cent of illegal crossings this year – must see that crossing the Channel in small boats is not a path to a life here.
"The record number of arrivals, and the prospect of further increases, require us to overhaul the system to ensure our laws are appropriate."
